Page:The Referendum and the Recall Among the Ancient Romans (Abbott, 1915, hvd.32044080048069).pdf/12

10 and, feeling sure from the temper of the people that he would be convicted, went into exile.

The first attempt to remove an official from office occured in 209 It was directed against Marcus Claudius Marcellus who had not succeeded in making head against Hannibal, but it failed of success. A similar move against the proconsul Scipiu in 204 was likewise without result, but in 137 Marcus Æmilius Lepidus was removed from his proconsular command in Spain. Two things are noteworthy in connection with these cases. All the officials concerned were charged with committing offences in the performances of their military duties, and the first official to be recalled was not one of the city magistrates, but a proconsul, the incumbent of an office which did not belong in the original political hierarchy.

After it had been once granted that charges based on incompetence or neglect in the conduct of military affairs could be lodged against officials, it was natural to indict them for political misconduct, when political feeling ran high. Such a situation arose in 169 when the censor, Gaius Claudius Pulcher, was charged during his term of office with having disregarded the intercession of a tribune, and his colleague Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was accused of interrupting an official meeting of the people over which the tribune was presiding. Both censors agreed to stand trial, and excaped conviction by narrow margin. It is significant that the first sure instance of an attempt to recall a civil magistrate was directed against an official who, like the proconsul, was allowed large discretion in the performance of his public duties because of the nature of his office. Strangely enough this movement to displace the censors emanated, not from the masses, but from the capitalists, who were offended by a decision of the censors concerning the letting of contracts. In the case of both censors, however, the technical charge was based on an offence against the tribune, who represented in a peculiar way the rights of the people. The action taken against the censors of 169 was technically an impeachment trial. Testimony was presented and arguments for the prosecution and defence were heard, but the proceedings were very brief, appeals were made to political passion, and the jury was a meeting of all the